AGN 8GHz measurements

Very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) measurements of the sizes of compact extragalactic radio sources, jetted active galactic nuclei, provide data for probing the angular size-redshift relation, offering a classical cosmological test complementary to other distance-redshift methods. Aiming to update and extend previous studies conducted in the 1990s, we analyse a significantly expanded and improved dataset to reassess the angular size-redshift relation and its potential for constraining cosmological model parameters, focusing on the matter density parameter, Omega_m_, in a flat Lambda cold dark matter Universe. This is the first major update of the compact-source angular size test in the past quarter of a century, using a dataset an order of magnitude larger than in previous studies. We performed a Markov chain Monte Carlo analysis on real data and on multiple mock catalogues with varying Gaussian noise levels (10%, 20%, 50%) to evaluate parameter constraints in the presence of observational scatter. In addition, we conducted a test with 100 randomized catalogues created by shuffling redshifts while preserving other observables to explore the statistical significance of the angular size-redshift dependence. We also explored how astrophysical parameters depend on fixed cosmological models with different Omega_m_ values. The randomization test showed that the posterior distributions from randomized data do not overlap with those from real observations, with significant deviations, confirming that the measured angular size-redshift relation is physically meaningful and not a chance alignment. The astrophysical model parameter that describes the redshift dependence of the source angular size exhibits strong sensitivity and degeneracy with Omega_m_. Simulated mock catalogues indicate that the method is able to constrain Omega_m_ if the data scatter is below ~20%, but current real data noise levels are too high for reaching competitive cosmological constraints. Scaling estimates suggest that high-quality data of samples of several thousands to ~100000 sources, a standardization calibration approach, and/or refining sample selection criteria are needed to fully exploit the potential of the angular size- redshift test with this type of object.

Identifier
Source https://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/lp/custom/CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/710/A133
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/710/A133
Related Identifier https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/710/A133
Metadata Access http://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/pmh/pubreg.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_b2find&identifier=ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/710/A133
Provenance
Creator Ghodsi Yengejeh M.; Koryukova T.A.; Gurvits L.I.; Frey S.; Pushkarev A.B.,Plavin A.V.; Kellermann K.I.; Kovacs A.
Publisher CDS
Publication Year 2026
Rights https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.html
OpenAccess true
Contact CDS support team <cds-question(at)unistra.fr>
Representation
Resource Type Dataset; AstroObjects
Discipline Astrophysics and Astronomy; Cosmology; Galactic and extragalactic Astronomy; High Energy Astrophysics; Natural Sciences; Observational Astronomy; Physics